| Flu Pandemic Inevitable, Plans Needed Urgently -WHO |
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Every country in the world must come up urgently with a plan to deal with an inevitable influenza pandemic likely to be triggered by the bird flu virus that hit Asia this year, a top global health expert said on Friday.
Every country in the world must come up urgently with a plan to deal with an inevitable influenza pandemic likely to be triggered by the bird flu virus that hit Asia this year, a top global health expert said on Friday.
I believe we are closer now to a pandemic than at any time in recent years, said Shigeru Omi, regional director for the Western Region of the World Health Organization (WHO).
No country will be spared once it becomes a pandemic, he told a news conference.
History has taught us that influenza pandemics occur on a regular cycle, with one appearing every 20 to 30 years. On this basis, the next one is overdue, he said at a conference of 13 Asian health ministers trying to figure out how to avoid one.
We believe a pandemic is highly likely unless intensified international efforts are made to take control of the situation, he said of the H5N1 avian flu virus, which has defied efforts to eradicate it in several Asian countries, including Thailand.
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919 killed upwards of 20 million people and WHO experts say the next could infect up to 30 percent of the world’s more than 6 billion people and kill up to 7 million of them.
Omi said that to stave that off, the world would have to cooperate closely by sharing information promptly and openly on the virus -- such as how it spreads, why it hits children more easily than adults and how quickly it is mutating.
Secrecy in China last year helped the deadly SARS virus spread to many other countries before it could be brought under control and Beijing has also been accused of hiding the extent of its AIDS epidemic.
Vaccine will protect you from the disease and reduce the impact individually. But vaccination alone will not prevent this outbreak, Omi said.
Each country has to come up with a plan because, as I said, a pandemic, it will happen.
HUGE HUMAN TOLL
Two U.S. firms are working on a vaccine, but neither is likely to have one ready until March, well after the cooler Asian season in which bird flu thrives best.
The H5N1 virus, which has already killed 20 Vietnamese and 12 Thais, arrived in Asia about a year ago, probably spread by migrating birds, especially wild fowl heading to warmer climes at the onset of the northern winter.
Governments have slaughtered tens of millions of poultry in a bid to eradicate it but WHO experts say it is now probably a permanent fixture.
The wild birds, which can carry the virus without falling ill, are flying south through Asia to escape the northern winter and, in an alarming development, domesticated ducks are showing they too can have the virus without showing it, Omi said.
Experts say a pandemic will emerge from an animal, most probably a pig, which can harbor both flu viruses that affect humans and the avian flu variety. The two would mate and produce a virus to which people have no immunity, they say.
That has not happened yet, but Omi said the geographical spread and the impact of the H5N1 virus was unprecedented and had struck animals such as tigers and domesticated cats not previously known to be susceptible to avian flu viruses.
We have found that the virus is resilient, very, very versatile, Omi said.
The Asian health ministers -- from Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- promised they would make plans for a pandemic and cooperate to stave it off.
In a joint statement at the end of the two-day meeting, they pledged to work together to develop vaccines, diagnostic tests for humans and research urgently needed to provide more information on the virus.
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| Banta Diet to Resume Individual Weekly Planning and Greater - Nov 28, 2004 10:43 IST |
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Answering The Overflowing Request, Bantadiet.Com To Resume Individual Weekly Planning, More Dieting Options And Greater Than Before Individual Support.
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| Cord blood offers leukaemia hope - Nov 28, 2004 10:31 IST |
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Cord-blood transplants have tended to be used only on children as it was not thought to contain enough stem cells to rebuild the blood system in adults.
But the study showed the survival rate for cord-blood transplants was the same as for slight mismatched bone marrow - the second best alternative treatment.
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| UK children top cannabis league - Nov 28, 2004 10:26 IST |
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About one in 10 of this age group have smoked pot at least 40 times in the last year, says the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
The UK also has the joint highest number of young cocaine users, alongside Spain.
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| Tablet Kiosk Now Shipping i-Series of Tablet PC’s - Nov 27, 2004 22:30 IST |
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TabletKiosk, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sand Dune Ventures, Inc today announced that they are now shipping the Sahara i-Series of Tablet PCs. These units are based on the Intel Celeron 900 MHz and Intel Centrino 1.3GHz Processors, featuring either a Resistive touch-screen running Microsoft XP Professional or Active Digitizer screen running Microsoft XP Tablet Edition.
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| Hoodia Diet Products - Nov 27, 2004 22:24 IST |
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Hoodiadietproducts.com – Hoodia slimming, an online over the counter natural appetite suppressant.
Hoodiadietproducts.com, providing Hoodia, the new fast acting, quality and affordable answer to your weight loss problems in the UK, Hoodiadietproducts.com is proud to launch in the United Kingdom.
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| It’s Never Too Early to Teach Kids the Activity Habit - Nov 27, 2004 7:41 IST |
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Jane Clark calls this the age of containerized kids.
As infants, children are plopped from car-safety seats to high chairs to baby seats to watch TV, said Clark, a movement specialist at the University of Maryland.
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| How to Survive Thanksgiving Overeating - Nov 27, 2004 18:1 IST |
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It happened again, didn’t it? Despite your promises to cut the carbs, trim the fat and count the calories, Thanksgiving came and the turkey wasn’t the only thing that ended up stuffed.
At least you’re not alone. Overeating at Thanksgiving is about as traditional as pumpkin pie. Now it’s just a question of whether you take control or slip into that seasonal binge you promise will stop when the ball drops in Times Square.
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| Worker Shortages Threaten Health Advances - Nov 27, 2004 17:59 IST |
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A shortage of doctors, nurses and midwives around the globe is threatening health initiatives and could have dire political and economic consequences, public health experts said on Friday.
Without an estimated 4 million more healthcare workers, efforts to battle HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases could fail.
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| Manmohan Singh calls Karunanidhi - Nov 27, 2004 17:38 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M. Karunanidhi to enquire about his health Friday, DMK sources said.
Karunanidhi, 81, was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai for a stomach ailment.
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| Former CNN Headline News Health Anchor Speaks Up for NutriSystem - Nov 27, 2004 14:53 IST |
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Kat Carney, a CNN Headline News health anchor for more than three years, has decided to dedicate her talents to helping America’s weight-challenged dieters reach their goals and improve their lives. In the past, television viewers have watched her unsuccessfully struggle to overcome a lifelong obesity problem, but today, Carney is happy to report that she has lost 40 pounds on the NutriSystem (AMEX: NSI) Nourish program and just signed on as an official spokesperson to tell the world about it.
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| British official to join Sonia Gandhi for AIDS walk - Nov 27, 2004 14:54 IST |
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Joining the AIDS Walk for Life in India with Congress party president Sonia Gandhi on World AIDS Day - Dec 1 - will be one of the highlights of British Secretary for International Development Hilary Benn’s visit next week.
Benn will be making his first official visit to India over four days from Nov 29. He will travel to Andhra Pradesh to visit an HIV/AIDS and TB hospital and launch a DFID (Department for International Development)- funded project to combat child labour.
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| Health Discovery Corporation Announces Filing of Patent Application Covering Gene Biomarkers for Prostate Disease - Nov 27, 2004 14:51 IST |
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Health Discovery Corporation (OTC BB: HDVY) today announced that it has filed an application in the United States Patent and Trademark Office for patent protection of its latest discoveries relating to diagnosis and treatment of prostate disease. These discoveries include new sets of genetic biomarkers that provide a high degree of accuracy for distinguishing BPH (Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia) from prostate cancer and for distinguishing high-grade prostate cancers from less malignant grades. Biomarkers were also identified for separating BPH from normal prostate with a high degree of accuracy. Claims in the patent application are directed to each new set of biomarkers and their uses in screening, diagnosis and treatment of prostate disease.
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| UK’s National Health Service may outsource to India - Nov 27, 2004 14:50 IST |
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Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is expected to move around 400 jobs to India to save costs as part of a part-privatisation of its back-office accounting and purchasing division.
IT services firm Xansa is reported to be taking a 50 percent stake in a government agency that does purchasing and accounting on behalf of the NHS.
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| AIDS in jails but no proposal for condoms - Nov 27, 2004 14:47 IST |
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Despite an AIDS outbreak in Maharashtra’s jails, the state government here is reluctant to distribute condoms among the inmates like in other countries.
State government officials here fear that the distribution of condoms in jails would amount to condoning homosexuality, which is an offence under Indian law.
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| British health officials endorse NRI couple’s crusade - Nov 27, 2004 14:42 IST |
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A non-resident Indian (NRI) couple’s crusade for the right to create a donor sibling for stem cell treatment of their ailing son has led British health authorities agree to fund the controversial technique for treating similar cases.
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has reportedly come to accept the technique that enables scientists to find out whether an embryo will grow into a child whose tissue will match that of a brother or sister.
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| New eHI Group Brings Small Medical Practices Closer to Using Information Technology - Nov 27, 2004 14:8 IST |
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Small medical practices ready to use electronic health records are that much closer to implementation because of a new eHealth Initiative (eHI) working group. Launched today, the Working Group for Health Information Technology (HIT) in Small Medical Practices will put practical, easy-to-use resources into the hands of those who deliver the majority of U.S. health care -- clinicians practicing in groups of 10 or less -- thereby improving the quality of care delivered to a majority of America’s patients.
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| Novation Pilots Online Contract Bidding Tool for Its Medical-Surgical Distribution Bid - Nov 27, 2004 14:7 IST |
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Novation, the supply company of VHA Inc. and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), has created a new online Web site that will allow companies to participate in a competitive bid for its upcoming medical-surgical distribution contract. The online tool saves distributors time and money, and will help Novation speed new contracts to market. Novation has received more than 65 registrations for its medical-surgical distribution request for information (RFI) since the site went live in early November.
The registration site (http://www.novationco.com/suppliers/su_bidcalendar.asp) enables suppliers to register to participate in the RFI. Once registered, distributors are provided access to a separate Web site where they can electronically view and download all documents related to the RFI.
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| IBM and Massachusetts General Hospital Announce Effort to Improve Information Sharing Among Cancer Researchers - Nov 27, 2004 14:3 IST |
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IBM and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, announced today that they are working together to study how the development of a grid-based, distributed computing infrastructure can facilitate improved collaboration and information sharing among cancer researchers.
Working with leading cancer researcher Dr. Thomas Deisboeck, M.D., of MGH’s Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging -- who is also affiliated with the Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) -- IBM computer scientists at the company’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, research lab have built a grid of high-performance computers designed to improve information sharing and help researchers gain new insight through advanced brain tumor modeling and simulation.
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| Milk to help treat osteoporosis - Nov 27, 2004 13:1 IST |
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The remarkable bone-building properties of a milk protein can help treat osteoporosis, researchers in New Zealand have discovered.
Auckland’s Osteoporosis Research Group has found that lactoferrin inhibits bone breakdown and boosts bone growth four times faster than normal when injected directly into bone cells, reports Xinhua.
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| Stanly Memorial Hospital Seamlessly Integrates Meditech With MEDHOST’s Full ED Product Suite - Nov 27, 2004 12:50 IST |
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Stanly Memorial Hospital seamlessly integrated its Meditech interfaces with the fully powered suite of MEDHOST Emergency Department Management System (EDMS) software products on August 10, 2004. Stanly Memorial, which experiences approximately 30,000 patient visits per year, made this integration decision in 90 days, from contract to go-live.
While MEDHOST is an electronic record designed specifically for the ED, Stanly Memorial used global thinking in selecting the vendor, taking into consideration how the system impacts patients as they travel through the rest of the organization. According to Brian Freeman, Vice President of Diagnostics and Information Technology at Stanly, MEDHOST can transfer the data into other clinical systems and data repositories. The data is readily accessible, allowing us to provide exceptional care and increase efficiency.
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